Laboratory of Energy Intensive Processes

The infrastructure of our Lab integrates several instalments of laundry equipment and is a fully functional industrial laundry facility with 500kg/shift capacity, which serves as a model of energy intensive processes. The sophisticated infrastructure and data acquisition system allows the measuring of wide a spectrum of physical entities and examining factors influencing energy intensity, and relationships between these factors as well as effectiveness of various saving measures in real life facilities.

Laundry equipment

These are the core technological components available in the laboratory:

This machinery reflects equipment in recent laundry facilities with 500 kg per shift capacity. The technological equipment was further extended with necessary accessories such as a manual ironer, sewing machine, transport trolleys, etc.

Universal experimental infrastructure

The flexible connection of all the above mentioned machines requires the instalment of suitable infrastructure. A steel structure is located in the laboratory and connects inlets for fluid flows, waste, exhaust, and elements for analysis of operational characteristics. 18 independent sites are located around this structure where various energy intensive appliances may be tested (e.g. reactors, dishwashers, sterilizers, etc.).

The professional laundry process involves the implementation of energy efficient technologies; however, the lack of operational data is a common feature. Our Lab has a measurement system with a far wider range of measurable quantities than common laundry facilities. In addition to the consumption monitoring, there are the following meters installed in our laboratory:

Prandtl tubes, thermometers, and sensors for relative humidity at the exhaust from dryers and ironers (i.e. measuring of loss due to heat in flue gas of the machines)

A gas microturbine is also part of our Lab machinery and is used as a generator of dry air (up to 90 kW) and electrical energy (up to 28 kW). The microturbine will serve for the testing of cogeneration in laundry services. Flue gas coming from turbines may act as a drying medium in dryers.